 Call that to order. I'm starting the recording. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? There's a report from the policy committee that should be on the agenda. If you could add that. Okay, I got it. David. And then an update on WEC, um, CD Fiber activity. Update on WEC. Anything else? And Jeremy, I have to get off the call at 10 minutes to eight because there's a conflict with who gets Zoom and eight o'clock in the household here. So if we can get to the policy committee stuff before 10 of eight, that would be really good. Sure. So we'll, yeah, we'll do that. We'll try to do that early. Anything else that needs to be changed or updated? ARDAF updates. Can't do ARDAF updates. Hearing no more changes, uh, public comments. Any comments on items that are not on the agenda that you would like to talk about? Okay. Hearing none, um, moving on to the consent agenda, um, so I move that we approve the consent agenda, which includes only the approval of the September 22nd, 2020 minutes. Second. Okay, that was seconded by Chuck. Any further discussion? All in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay. Any opposed? Abstentions. Looks like Josh is an abstention. Yeah, abstention. Okay. So we have, um, it's approved unanimously with one abstention. Moving on, finance report. I sent you all the bank statement. I hope you got a chance to see that. So we finally got our checks. We've had long, long, long lasts. It's only like two months late for the one and another month late and one month late for the other one, but our bills are paid. We're kind of ready to go if we need to to do anything else. So I don't think that there's anything pending other than that. Um, there was some question about, um, spending some of the money right away. Somebody wanted to, was this for the, um, demand aggregation software? Tim, I think we, we had exchanged an email about this. Did you, do we want to move forward with spending that? Because this would be a, a bill to pay or a purchase to authorize? Yeah. So I think what, um, what we need to do is kind of rebrand, uh, what that software is. But I think, you know, it's going to come up in the, uh, in the discussions later as far as, because we did package that, um, coming out of the business development meeting. But we do have a recommendation of who we would use for that tool. Um, the COS systems as a software solution. Okay. Sounds good. Um, so good segue here, unless anybody has any questions about the, the bank statement and so on. Um, let's move on to, uh, project managers report. Tim, anything that you want to report back? Um, yeah, I think, uh, just to give, uh, you know, an update on what, uh, what I've been up to, um, I've, uh, worked on, uh, with the assistance of others on the, on the board creating a spreadsheet that's now tracked our grants and loan opportunities, which includes, uh, past, present and future. So I think that's just, it gives a high level of understanding of, uh, who the entities are, what money is available, uh, and then what provisions and timing those are. So I think that's a helpful resource going forward that we can update. I have issued a request for capabilities and interests to, uh, 18 different, uh, potential ISP partners. Uh, the deadline for those, uh, coming back is this Friday. Uh, we've already started to receive some of those. So that'll start to develop, um, who is interested and in what capacities they're interested in, in partnering with us in the future. Uh, it did work. It won't necessarily come to, uh, be used in the near future, but I did develop a poll inventory draft RFP that we can use in the future as those needs arise, um, whether that's in, um, into the, uh, pilot blue, um, blue route or something in the future. And also working on identifying potential partners for marketing and website development work that will likely come out of, uh, some monies that we'll receive. So starting to find out who's out there and what entities, uh, I would, uh, we could recommend. And also just, uh, I'd say business outreach with, uh, not just, um, with the ISPs in the more near term of who, uh, who can help us in the near future. And then as far as looking forward, um, obviously there's going to be some recommendations coming out of this evening for some funding through, uh, through the legislative money. So, um, looking at managing those projects that come out of it and also working in closer concert with, uh, Chalk and the Communications Committee, potentially on marketing, uh, website and communications, uh, more customer outreach and canvassing. And also, uh, working on the, uh, VEDA application, uh, understanding what those requirements are, what do VEDA fiber need to present to have a solid, um, application that would be, um, commendable to their, uh, expectations in favor of, uh, loaning the, uh, the money for 2021. So that's all I've got for report. Any questions for Tim? Thank you, Tim. Um, let's go on, uh, let's do the update on WEC, David. Okay. So the, uh, there was a very productive meeting with WEC, uh, maybe 10 days ago and, um, sorting out who's doing what and whatever in terms of, it was with the full board. Um, the board did decide that they have told the staff to move forward with trying to set up a, um, fiber to all their customers. And the basic outcome from that too is that we have agreed to develop an MOU between CE fiber and WEC on terms of defining what our relationships are and how we would go forward. And I have started to do an outline of that, but I think we basically will need to hire a lawyer and an accountant, I don't know, some financial person to really, I mean, the MOU is only to specify what would later come in various contracts. But anyway, I just want to let everybody know that that's the next step with WEC. And now that they've decided to move forward with what, at least get closer to what they're doing, and they have finished completing their feasibility study with, uh, NRTC. And, um, so it was a really good meeting. I mean, it was EC fiber, CV fiber and kingdom fiber made presentations to the full board. And then after our presentations, the board had discussions with the staff and made these recommendations. So I see it as progress finally and getting an MOU together is going to, we should probably try to get it done in the next month or so. At least a good draft. So I'd be looking for help on that, both from Tim and from wherever resource we need to. I don't know if we need to spend money yet to do that, but we may need some professional help. Okay. Any questions for David about, about this? So what exactly did WEC say it was going to do? They've made a decision to string fiber? They told their staff to, to start pursuing that. They didn't make a, the basically, all right. So the steps are the board, the staff have to prepare a document for the public utilities commission to get approval to take, take on this new venture. And they need to do that in order to get money from our US. So it sort of is a go ahead, but they still have a couple of hoops to go through. And maybe Michael knows better than I do the, the, the steps that are required. But basically they directed the staff to, to do this. Doesn't mean they're going to get, if they don't get the money, they can't do it. But they got to go through the steps to prove that it wouldn't impact their rate payers. That's the main thing, right Michael? So step one, the board has to motion, two motions unanimously that they wanted to put fiber on all their polls in support of their electrical utility needs. And to make the excess capacity available for communications. And the way they want to do it is to pay for it themselves by borrowing money from USDA rural utility services, or US. And it could be somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million. And in order to borrow $25 million from our US, they have to go to the PUC and get permission to do that because they will have to show that it won't impact negatively on rate payers. So the process has started that they're laying out a plan. They don't have it in place yet, but they will, I'm pretty sure they will go to the PUC and ask for permission to do this. Then there's this step C, which is their mortgage holder bank, which is separate from our US, and they're involved. And I'll not go into that detail. But they hope that by in several months, they'll be in a position to make agreements with CV fiber and others based on their process to get the US money, which could take eight months to get that money because of all the bureaucracy and due diligence that has to occur. And I guess that's probably sufficient unless someone has more questions. Well, the one more question I have is, are the entities who will be able to access the system pay to use it? Is that restricted to nonprofits or could a for-profit also buy space on the broadband, on the fiber? Fiber is entering into an MOU with WAC. EC fiber is entering into an MOU with WAC. And CV fiber is entering into an MOU with WAC. We all are relatively in agreement with some fine points that are different, which is why there's going to be individual MOUs. I guess the best I can answer in a public meeting. Yes, what I'm really asking is what if Comcast or Consolidated wants to buy some space on the network? Would they be able to do it? Where has that not been determined? And let me tell you what I'm getting at. I mean, is this relative news? Should we all be jumping up and down? I mean, this is like waking up and finding you're surrounded by candy and a thousand terrible seraphim and all that other kind of stuff. Or is it really just hurry up in ways and maybe it's going to happen? This is really good news. Thank you, Michael. Stop there. I'm happy. It sounds good. This has taken more than a year to get to this point and we're very happy. You're expressing a history of pain, so I appreciate your efforts. Okay. Any other questions about WAC? Okay, not seeing any. Let's do... So while we have you in the hot seat there, Alan, you want to talk about the policy committee? Sure. And let me first explain. Phil is not able to be with us. He had an accident and he's recuperating and is in some degree of pain, I guess. So Zoom meeting was the last thing he wanted to face. So he asked me to run us through the policy committee. Policy committee met last Wednesday, well, past Wednesday, and you got the recommendation. I think Phil sent it around. He actually sent it in two pieces. He sent around the piece where we are proposing that to address the question that was brought up at a previous meeting about conflict of interest regarding contractors, subcontractors, that we actually add a new section to our current, the board's current conflict of interest policy. And that's the section F that Phil sent around. If you look at the end of the conflict of interest policy, you'll find it. And then there's a second piece. And the second piece is we propose language that should be, it must be added to all contracts going forward that CV fiber wants to enter into. And that's the short language that has to do with making sure that the contractor realizes it has responsibility for discerning, finding out if any possible subcontractors might have a conflict of interest. And in both cases, if any conflicts of interest are identified, approval of the CV fiber, we recommend the executive committee is needed before any contracts or agreements can be executed. So what we tried to do was to address the problem that was presented what a number of months ago concerning a conflict of interest of a subcontractor. And without having to rewrite everything and get into hiring a lawyer to make sure the language was fine and all that, we thought it would be practical and would actually be effective to expand, as I pointed out, slightly our own conflict of interest policy to cover contractors. And then as we're asked as a board to identify any conflicts we have, the contractor has to identify any contract and any conflicts he or she might have. And if there are any subcontractors being considered, they are asked to do the same. So that's, that's what we're recommending that the board do. So I've put pasted that language into the chat. Sorry, I'm having a bit of a coughing fit right now. And then you've all seen the hopefully seen the draft policy, which, like Alan said, is a amendment of a policy that we passed um like a month into our existence. So we've had it. June 12, 2018. Yep. So any any thoughts or questions you want me to put it up on the screen or Michael? We're asking contractors to self identify conflicts of interest. I don't know that everyone will. And yes, it uses the word it's ever identified, which allows for outside parties to identify conflict as well. I remember what gave rise to this whole thing and think it maybe it was overwrought at the time, but I think maybe we've watered it down a little too far. I'm wondering, and I hate to challenge a committee's work and and belabor it in this meeting, but I wonder if we want to ask the policy committee to consider toughening it up a little bit. Let me respond that if we do anything more than this, we're probably going to have to hire a lawyer because basically what our original conflict of interest policy did and what the addition tries to hue to is a model policy that's when Jim Barlow was with us, an attorney who worked for the league of cities and towns and then went into private practice, which is what he does now. He was on our board for the first couple of years and he helped us with a couple of policies and this is one of them. One of the things he did was he got the model policy from the league of cities and towns and he also looked at the statute that requires every public entity in the state to have a conflict of interest policy, which is why we adopted one as early as we did. It was required and he made sure that everything in the policy was within the rails that had been set up first by statute and then by the league of cities and towns. I think if we start to vary much from this, I would feel incredibly uncomfortable if we didn't then hire a lawyer to go through it and to make sure that what we're doing is legal. I mean basically I know what you mean, the self-identification thing is an interesting way of how conflicts of interest are identified, but that's exactly what the state conflict of interest policy is as well. And I think as we found out in this first instance, we did eventually find out a conflict of interest and that was even without telling people about it. I think when we stated in a contract, if you're a contractor and you know that's in the contract and you still go ahead and don't ask subcontractors or if the subcontractor doesn't speak up, I think you're going to be in a boatload of trouble. I think your name is going to be mud around the entire state of Vermont. It's a very close community especially for this work and I think most people are going to consider the risk too high to not do the work we're asking them to do which is to identify either their excuse me their own or possible conflicts that a subcontractor might have. The other thing is you know we've really got to focus on getting our core work done. Our core work is getting internet, high-speed internet to people and spending a lot of time developing policies or spending money hiring lawyers to do it. I just don't think that's a great use of our time at this point. I completely agree with that. How are you looking for a motion? So hold on though. I mean so the original so when the policy was originally proposed it was about giving the governing board or some subset thereof the ability to approve or disapprove subcontractors. I don't think that this is that this is addressed here frankly and it may be scratch as part of the itch. So going back to what Michael said you know does this have the teeth that we're looking for and I think no and there's nothing there's nothing illegal about asking a contractor that we're arguably going to be paying money for money to and asking them to do things to run by us who they're subcontracting with. So yes I mean should we have the policy vetted by a lawyer probably we should probably have that done eventually anyways. You know we had the luxury of having a representative from Marshfield who wrote this for us and who took the policy that he built for the League of Cities and Towns then and modified it for us so not exactly legal advice but as well as we can get it without you know without engaging him and paying him. So I mean I would approve this because I think this is a this is a decent step but I think to kind of paraphrase Michael I do think this is a bit weak sauce. Siobhan. So I expressed similar concerns during the committee meeting. The problem is when I sit down and try and think about how to express this in a way that isn't just about one thing or one situation. I have a hard time of course I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a policy walk so so that's at least part of it but the other thing is I'm not during the meeting wherein this got sent to the policy committee there was a lot of discussion about not wanting to vet all of the subcontractors. There was a very vocal discussion about not we don't want to have to review all the subcontractors and so that's one of the reasons why we kind of leaned away from that because the board at least several members of the board felt that that wasn't appropriate either so I can't we were trying to weigh that in this so I can I can see what you're saying and I agree but I don't know how to word it differently if nobody wants to wants us to be reviewing subcontractors too. I don't know what to say to that. Any other thoughts about this? I'll make a quick comment. I don't think we should I agree with those people on your committee who said we shouldn't be going through all the subcontractors. I don't think that's necessary. I just think there should be a little bit more of a penalty or process for evaluating conflicts as they arise but for every contractor to then have to during the course of a contract present subcontractors to the executive committee or board to get approval before they can continue with work I don't think is practical but I just would and I'm comfortable with it as it's written I'll vote for it. I was just suggesting it might be tightened a little more but it's it's uncomfortable with it still. Jeremy would it be appropriate to say that we would ask contractors to provide us with a in in addition to identifying conflicts of interest ask them to provide us with a list of subcontractors before they retain those subcontractors then we don't need to vet them or review them but that you know they're giving us that information so they're more inclined to be on the ball maybe because we have more information and we could look if we wanted to and then and then we could say well it looks like this person has a conflict that seems reasonable providing a list of the subcontractors that they're using rather than an approval process you mean yeah okay policy committee folks any any thoughts about that I don't know if you've discussed that already and well I don't think we talked specifically about providing a list why don't you return the policy to us without prejudice and we'll try and come up with some language that that does that without somehow creating a logjam if a contractor is going to be hiring a whole bunch of subcontractors and they have to do it the next week you know if we if the pandemic gets bad and there's a lot more money coming and it has to be spent in a month that would make things really kind of problematic so if people would accept that I would suggest instead of us trying to sit here writing some language we can just send it back to the committee and we'll try and do the work you know in the next few weeks before the board has the next meeting and get back to you and then we can chew on it again yeah what do you think michael um I think Jeremy's suggestion was good I would just modify it and state it does not the list does not have to be submitted before hiring just they have to submit a list of contractors they've hired and I would maybe submit the obstacles I mean if we I hate to say it what David is contracting I mean when you put out an RFP you ask you always ask in the RFP who were your subcontractors working on this project I mean at the standard practice in the industry in all industries the ones I respond to they said principal subcontractors but they're going to be minor ones as well and that's that's where it gets all right all right let's find it back for the committee is that emotion David so so I mean so we didn't have yeah I mean I don't know that we even need a motion I mean I think we don't the committee can just go chew on it itself we can just choose not to take any action right now yeah the sentiment is clear and we know what the issue is so let us have some time and think about it all right thank you very much Allen any other questions or tasking for the uh policy committee before before we walk away from this temporarily okay not hearing anything let's uh let's move along uh communications committee Chuck great so yeah we met last week um and approved the uh the the communications you all should have received a copy of I just want to reiterate that those communications are for your convenience and if you want to modify them uh in order to support your local's communities desires or needs you are more than welcome to do so they are not meant to be taken verbatim if you you can do that but you you may also add your own personality I would just ask that when it comes to material facts you do try to stick to those because we spend a lot of time talking about how we are phrasing material facts and admittedly we may not always get it right but a lot of thought does go into it so you know if you ever have a question about something feel free to reach out to me on that we also spend a lot of time talking about what comes next based on the business plan that the business development committee put together were fairly behind on certain milestones of customer outreach that we had intended to start doing by now and a lot of that is intentional we've been playing kind of wait and see about where various funding sources might start to come together but the communications committee believes that at this time it is probably the right opportunity to start some customer and potential customer engagement and demand aggregation and as a result of that the committee proved unanimously bringing to the board a motion to reach start customer interest and demand aggregation along the blue route so consider that consider that a motion I will second Chuck's motion and so this is this is something also that we have under discussion for the decisions about initial fiber build and I think also about the cares funding options that the business development committee is going to report back on here as well so if anyone feels like we're not ready to to pull the trigger on this one yet we maybe could defer the communications committee motion to later after we've had those discussions but I would prefer not to not to simply shoot this down now if everybody's feeling nervous about it but if everybody's willing to move forward with this I think that we have an opportunity to make one of those rare actual decisions and hopefully get the show on the road Chavon just wanted to ask Chuck have you even looked at little green light at all for so should we continue it I'm not even sure if we still have a subscription to it or not at this point because I've been waiting for there to be something to do with it and so I've not done anything yeah I checked it out recently I'm pretty sure it's still active although it has been on the order of magnitude of probably many weeks since I've logged in so it certainly could have lapsed since then it is useful in terms of donation I think but there is an open question here if we're going to pull the trigger on a demand aggregation and or communications tool generally speaking if if that tool would be an adequate replacement for it then absolutely we should simplify and get rid of it I'd like to propose that as Tim brings to us proposals around that we ensure that we take a look at the feature set overlap and have a clear vision of that Tim does that sound good to you yes that that sounds reasonable as we get to those discussions correct so there is as I understand it so we're going to be talking about the budget as well so we do have a smallish budget for marketing selling expense these were just these were specifically items for you know that were in the cash flow model cash flow model about fiber to the home but if we need to bulk that up then you know we should probably probably add that in there Chuck are you are you looking for looking to spend some money by the end of the year I think we had some earmarked from the hundred hundred thousand dollars right yeah at this point in time I don't have a concrete proposal on that I think the next step if this motion is approved would be to come back to the board with a concrete proposal that includes a budget number that that we would be looking to leverage but yes I do think we would want to spend some amount of money prior to two year and we have to yeah okay so I'm not hearing any sort of excitement either way so is everyone ready to vote or okay I think everyone's ready to vote Michael I have a question um the business development committee meeting we were talking about prioritizing certain asks of the department of public service to use CARES Act money and this software under another title was part of that and if we were to authorize paying for it now and then ask for funding afterwards we would jeopardize that ask so I'm wondering if we should at least wait we should construct the project manager or whoever's going to be making this purchase to wait until we find out if we get funded for the department so I think though because we're not asking for any specific there's no you know Chuck's not coming to us with a specific money ask so I think comparing notes with what the business development committee and with what the funding sources look like I think then we can decide which bucket to draw from but I think we have some of that already Ken so I I'm not sure that it's true that the public service department won't provide us the funding even though we've already purchased it because the way I'm looking at this topic is as the motion is laid out we want the the software for a very specific purpose under this motion what we want to do for the ask of the public service department is to do a much broader exploration and indeed it is using the same software but that software as we talked about is going to be integrated with our web development and our canvassing effort so but but you get to the practical piece I'm not sure that they will evaluate our minutes of our meetings and our budgets to determine that we've already purchased it so you know I may be wrong but I but I'm not worried about it but also the way I'm thinking about this this ask is a little different it's the application of the software for a very specific use and I strongly strongly support it but the package that we'll be talking about from the business development group is different and again yeah it's the same product but if we can use the public service department money to support it that just helps us with our 2021 marketing gives us a little bit more resources for it thanks Ken Jeremy just to note that one of the later budget items is actually deciding on the initial fiber build um I don't know I mean has that been decided or that is what I'm asking the board to decide essentially by asking the board to start to start reach out and demand aggregation along the blue route I am asking the board to commit to the blue route as our first consideration Ken what I don't see it absolutely linked in that by doing the customer acquisition work we may find that it falls short and yes if it moves forward as we all hope that it does it is kind of a de facto yeah this is our higher priority but to me it's not we are therefore going to build blue it's rather we're going to take the first steps because we've got to take some steps so I kind of agree but I but I'm not I'm not saying automatically we're going blue to build you know I was just bringing that up as a question kind of more procedural than anything okay what do you think Ray? I think my recollection is that when we had this discussion before and I think it was Michael's suggestion that basically we're going to do 150 miles and what the assembly of those miles are is yet to be determined and so I'd be more inclined to go in that direction as opposed to saying go blue and then we go orange etc etc so that's where I'm at I see Michael has his finger up to either correct me or to add to that well I will I will happily respond to that I I think we need to make a decision I don't think we can say 150 miles and somewhere the budget that I'm writing does that you know what is that what is getting towards 150 miles look like for our next year and Ray thank you for thank you for your detailed feedback I definitely want to go through those one by one when we get to that there's some good stuff that I need to change based on those but I think that we can't do some of the initial steps that we need to do without making that decision just we're just going to choose that spot because that's I think we all had the instinct that that was where we wanted to start anyways but for whatever reason I mean we've gone three four meetings where we've kind of brought this question up and there's been some reluctance but I think I think we're ready to pull the trigger I mean that was the reason that I added the agenda item about the 730 decisions about initial fiber build and I'm glad Chuck is calling it out and yeah we made we can always change our minds later I mean if we haven't actually started contracting you know people to put stuff on polls you know we're only holding ourselves to standards that we can we can change our minds David yeah the business development committee at its last meeting passed the resolution a motion that the blue route was the number one and moving forward and so Chuck has just reaffirmed that so by passing this motion the board will have sanctioned that decision okay let's just do it that's what I'm thinking okay so unless I'm going to hear any other new bits of information let's move forward uh all in favor say aye hi okay hi are there any opposed I'm gonna stand okay who just said that they were abstaining is that Andy yep okay thanks Andy Ray Ray is abstaining as well I could read your lips okay so we have a motion passing unanimously with two abstentions thank you very much for putting that up Chuck you had a you had an additional motion though that you wanted to make I do I do so uh this segway is off of the prior conversation which is um first of all if we are now going to start going out and doing demand aggregation and producing lists of potential customers as well as some existing lists that we already have on hand of people who have put their email address on our website because they're interested people who have done survey responses we essentially already have a customer database potential customer database and pursuant to public records law I would like to make the motion that we consider these lists of potential customers as confidential pursuant to the exemptions uh allied in exemption number nine around trade secrets and confidential information that may put you at a competitive disadvantage so and specifically you had um so I'm gonna I'm gonna read that as a motion but I'm gonna gonna flush this out a bit more because you had some concrete things so survey data is there something you could paste in the chat you might if I just paste that that bullet that you said before okay yeah go for that that would be very helpful for me so I'm just going to read this motion um so Chuck moved that pursuant to exemption nine of the public record statutes we wish to keep the following pieces of data confidential that is established them as trade secrets um number one our survey data the exemption of aggregate data that we've already published or choose to publish going forward uh number two our website email form leads so customer database stuff right um and then demand interest aggregation data generated going forward so these are things that could have competitive ramifications if they were disclosed to to other providers okay so I will I will second that oh David seconded it before I got to it any further discussion one one of the reasons I think this is important is it's it will allow us when we actually start having contact with possible customers to be able to say we're gathering this information for our use only it's not going to be sold they're given to other people so you can speak to us and uh your information is going no further than cv fiber and I think that's important and there's certainly certainly the legal precedent for um protecting lists of people and subscribers and users and whatnot actually just to call it out exemption number 10 is specifically around lists of people um but it has a clause in it that's a little bit odd around uh privacy concerns I wasn't sure if there was a a legal definition of what that privacy concern might might be there so it could also be that exemption 10 is really the better one uh for us um I I would I would probably just say we think we have a good case whether it be nine or 10 yeah and we can I think in some cases we can claim both any other any other thoughts on this motion Jeremy so was that should should that be amended to mean something that you know motion that pursuant to exemption nine and or 10 no I don't look records blah blah maybe just remove the pursuant too and and say you know motion pursuant to exemptions including nine and 10 or something like that so so hold on so we're just we don't need to establish anything to to use exemption 10 so we can we can read that the reason that we're going to do this for exemption nine is that we are establishing that these are our trade secrets that these that the governing board has chosen to make these trade secrets and therefore in the future we can call this exemption um for when we're protecting that sensitive information and Alan is someone else who's rather familiar with the public records um statue please uh show me down our way in here if you have any thoughts well I can't remember what exactly what number 10 is so Chuck thanks for pointing that out I'll I'll take a look at it after the meeting uh you know we don't really have to now enumerate any of these things the only time you have to enumerate a specific exemption is when somebody makes a request for the information but I think we need to know for ourselves that there is valid justification for this information being identified as confidential proprietary information uh and I think judging from people's reactions we're all fine with that and we just want to have it understood when we go out and talk with people that that's the that the board is behind protecting the privacy of this information thanks Alan Henry just a quick comment on the fact that I'm thinking about these that it's important to do this um in light of the proposals like the ftp proposals and stuff because we're giving basically giving them money and a list of our two secret people that we're you know going to get provided for by them and become their customers so I mean at least that gives us and that should be addressed in the contract we have with with um Waitsville telecom for example okay sounds good any other any other thoughts okay uh all in favor of the motion to declare these trade secrets say hi hi hi okay any opposed or abstentions okay motion passes unanimously thank you everybody uh Chuck do you have anything else only a call that we have a lot of work on communications ahead of us and so I would I would like to ask uh that people do their best I know we're all busy uh but do their best to come and pitch in and help out as we can and so um I if I could just throw a reminder out there of all the wonderful work that you have done and the wonderful work that you still have in store that annual report language if you could uh generate that forthwith we are we're obliged to provide that to our member municipalities quite soon um I think a fair bit of it will be able to be easily recycled from the front porch forum notices that we've sent out previously if we can kind of stitch those together um I think the vast majority is already written it just needs to be assembled so if you would be definitely it'll be on the agenda for the next meeting lovely lovely thank you very much okay um moving along so grant funding update and cares funding options um I want to say a real quick thing um on my side of the world when it comes to this and I think I'm going to hand this off to David for the most part uh in business development um there is a one final bit of paperwork that I have yet to put together that um USDA Rural Development finally got back to me last week and said oh if you actually want to close out your your grant you here's what you have to do and there's another additional piece of paperwork which of course there is um so I will be doing that probably this week to actually really no joke close out our our grant there again not that we're drawing any more money from it or whatever just another bit of paperwork hoopla to go through so um with that in mind um I'm going to hand it off to David I'm actually going to drop off camera for a moment I'll be right back okay okay so in the previous hour the business development committee met to consider items to submit to the department of public service for round two of the covid funding for communication union districts in which we have the legislation as passed says that we can have another $300,000 on top of the $100,000 we got but the instructions we have I received from Rob Fish at the department is well there's going to be a lot of CUDs that can't can't meet all the you can't spend that much money um make a list and prioritize it for submittal to the department and they'll award whatever they can award based on that so to help us with that decision we had identified a number of projects and we did a ranking and based on the meeting we've come up with um basically four projects uh we're combining the canvassing tracking and website marketing into one one item and that came in number I guess number one number two is uh fiber to the home in Roxbury with ec fiber contract for serving 22 houses at $30,000 a mile which would be 90,000 and we're in these discussions with waitfield telecom to potentially provide service to a number of houses to be determined with more discussion with them and with the representative from more town um and we don't know how much money that will be but I've allocated 150 right now um based on what they had used in some of the earlier projects they submitted for connectivity now um and then the last ranked project is building a fixed wireless project um one identified on 232 and marshfield and another one that's undefined at this moment um the one that was proposed originally for elmore is really a stretch to accomplish in this time frame based on communications with cloud alliance michael van von and so that's it so we're recommending that we submit this priority listing of projects to the department this week um well all of these will require much more work to get them going in terms of contracting and whatever else but we got to get the application into them as soon as we can um and I'll be happy to answer any questions I have one and I did listen into most of the meeting um I'm not sure that the the question was was resolved I seem to remember it being brought up briefly um because this is money allocated for CUDs and we're looking at with the exception of ec fiber valley net I actually released a mainly weights field are we considering having these customers that would be that would be added as cv fiber customers because I would I would I'm not sure that I would sign off personally as a yes vote on that project unless it there were cv fiber customers at this point we would need to develop a relationship and an immense memorandum of understanding um if they are serviced by weights field telecom I believe they end up becoming weights field telecom customers not cv fiber customers in terms of you know ownership or whatever I mean basically the idea is serving as many people as we can in the shortest time as possible um it's a good point and the same thing with ec fiber ec fiber we need to have a memorandum of understanding as to who owns what and how this money is being used I mean so it basically have to be developing as part of these if we were funded to do these define that relationship with them and I agree it's a it's probably an issue that we're going to have going forward to in terms of we end up with multiple isps who who owns the the asset and you know we're going to have we're going to have quite a split district when it comes to operations and how we have an arrangement with each of these is going to be pretty critical well and and again in the interest of getting revenues on the table so that we can eventually be pulling those revenue bonds should we get to that point this is one of the benefits that when we were looking at the wireless project so I think we can probably talk to weights field so we're essentially saying hey weights field we're going to drop several you know tens of thousands of dollars or a hundred thousand dollars in your lap to build you know who would who would say no to that I mean really I mean as long as they can meet the build schedule but they should we should either be we should be owning those that fiber and leasing it to them at least be getting the revenue from them so even if those aren't cv fiber customers I mean if you think about it it's the state giving us the money yeah so I I think we really need to make sure that we we are seeing revenue for this because that's going to help us meet our mission down the road too so I see Ken Ray then Chuck yeah a point I raised during business development I want to raise it now is there's going to be a sequence of events if we have put in this application on Thursday it'll take at least two weeks for the public service department to make the decision um and ultimately come to a contract we need to use the couple weeks to really build the relationship with both either or both easy fiber and weights field Champlain on this very topic I'm not so locked in that we need to own the fiber but we do have a responsibility to the towns of Elmore and more and more town for providing service to every one of the addresses and to me that's the that's the discussion we have with those two entities they need to help us get to every address and um we're helping them no question and they need to recognize that this is a this is a partnership and with regards to ec fiber it may be a partnership that we expand along much of our boundary you know they may become a significant isp for us weights field you know I don't know I don't know how broadly they want to go into our area but anyway I I want us to submit to the public service department and with the with the recognition that we may not agree with either or ec fiber and weights field Champlain but having the money gives us a great position to sit down and talk to them um so that was my reason for supporting it full-throated at business development while supported here too okay I have Ray then Chuck yeah so it's one of the reasons why I abstained during the business development approval of this was that who actually owns the customers my view of the world is that we're contracting with someone to build it out with our money and they are going to be part of the contract is to build it out and to be the isp until such time that we are able to take over the operation and be the isp however we're going to do that isp part and so there are customers and we're going to set the and we're going to set the rates uh as well so I support it with that those understandings but I'm not going to support it if we're not going to wind up with those customers okay thanks Ray Chuck thanks Ray I agree with Ray uh quite a bit um I would just the more town stance would be that if that weightsfield telecom is a fantastic provider and I said I apologize is repeat for people who are in that meeting but um they're a fantastic provider they're well respected in our community they give back to our community quite a bit and having them expand is a great way to serve the mission of getting more more town residents faster internet and and so I am very supportive of that however I do remain cautiously supportive of it because I do worry about its potential to jeopardize getting two more fringe addresses that would not be part of that expansion and more town has a fairly um a weird geography where there are population densities kind of at different corners of the town and I find it very very unlikely that weightsfield telecom will ever serve the northeast and northwest corners of more town and so to serve the mission of getting um every more town residents fast internet um or every more town location fast internet I think it behooves us to be very careful about what kind of leverage we give up in terms of negotiating a relationship with weightsfield telecom and and just ensure that we're not just giving them the money to own it outright that there is some sort of bigger picture and longer term agreement there that helps feed the the overall mission as well any other any other thoughts on this henry you're muted is there any way we can take over some small aspect of operations even if it's like billing I mean we're talking about buying software for demand aggregation what if they just got a cv5 or bill you know that's just an example but the idea is if we had some involvement in operations then we would be able we know we'd be justified to have them as customers and so I'm just thinking of probably what could be this simplest thing which would be the billing we're not going to create a knock for cv5 or yet I think that's a good thought uh michael um I agree with some of what I've heard I think it was my suggestion in the midi that we use leverage um that we take advantage of the fact that we're providing them with funding to build I don't necessarily agree that they need to be our customers um I know that's not popular to say that but I don't I'm the idea that we're going to get much revenue from little pockets of customers to support revenue bonds is I'm not convinced of that I think if we do significant bills that's where that matters but when we're talking about 20 here or 30 there I think it's more important that we use the leverage to get them to build to those difficult to reach places in the town than it is to get claim customers and get revenue and and start billing I I think we should use our leverage to advance the mission in the town to cover it as opposed to the other so it it seems to me that we still have those um kind of those negotiations and those those leverages to apply but I don't I don't really hear anybody saying no let's not do these you know let's not provide these four projects to the public service department is there anybody who has any thoughts that we need to change the priority substantially or that we should not submit these to the to the pst so um so I'm I don't know that you formally moved this David but I'm I'm going to move that we send to the public service department our prioritized list of those four projects second okay David seconded it any further discussion we can obviously sort of navigate negotiate what this looks like the memorandum of understanding you know statements of work how we are all connected to each other you know legally in whose responsibility you know does our name appear on the bill are we you know owning the fiber leasing it out I think these are things that we can take over to business development frankly and well or or we can assign that to to a one person or a negotiating team to go and make sure that that you know that that stuff happens um but any other thoughts about yeah Alan is most of this section served by wek is it the dominant electric utility in these areas and rocks very no in more town I think most of it is based on the map you provided David most of that was wek okay you know that that might be the only thing to consider um that at some point we might have a real advantage working with wek if they get fiber lines in places that weights field is not particularly interested in building them because it would be so expensive but I don't know enough how the how the routes work to know if that's really something to concern us or not well and we should also have as part of our contract that they're obliged to provide wek with um with fibers so that they can use them because we wouldn't want wek to have to over build fiber that we paid for that would be hard yep yep yeah that's a good point thank you okay so um I'm not again I'm not seeing any screaming one way or the other so let's go right to the let's go right to the boat bless you Ray uh all in favor hi hi hi any any opposed or abstentions okay motion passes unanimously we've got some marching orders there David yes anything else from business developments that we should uh that we need to move forward on now we took care of the other issue and on communications actually it's the next item I think okay no it's no all right so um my question is that so supposing that we get funded do we have another governing board meeting to kind of negotiate the parameters and permutations of that I think Ken I think I say this with some hesitation I think we should have another governing board meeting next Tuesday okay um to really lay out because again this is going to have to happen so quickly to really lay out the principles that we want to put in those negotiations but also in terms of the fixed wireless piece to really lay out um the specific activities that we are obligated towards the identification of ISP to operate that in so anyway we have a lot of tasks so I I suggest that we meet next Tuesday okay I'm willing to do that is there anybody has any objections to this meeting next Tuesday all right I will I will schedule it thank you Ken anything else on on this I mean some of these things that we're talking about can obviously be be kicked over to that future meeting but if there are things that you think we need to discuss now we certainly have uh we certainly have the time for it okay Jeremy the only the only other thing I might want to worry about is what if you can't get a quorum for a full board meeting what if you instead have the biz development committee take this issue but invite everybody on the board to attend that committee meeting then at least we'd know we we we'd have a quorum to make sure we can move forward with making you know some sort of decisions well so so we could um we could simultaneously warn a business development committee meeting with a governing board meeting just essentially overlapping and if you've got yeah I I I'm I'm worried about meeting fatigue and I think at some point we're we're just going to drop below a quorum number and then it's going to get hard to move stuff along except if it's a committee that we know works hard and always meets when it says it well everybody anybody else wants to join the everybody else who wants to at least attend the meeting can do that without feeling like if they don't show up they're going to prevent a quorum yeah my honestly my my sense is whatever you know pick a committee so honestly I I think this is such a substantial meeting that we would be having next Tuesday I'm not so yes I am tired of being on meetings too it's been up it's been a sprint of a day um that said I think that there's enough meat and there's enough interesting decisions to be made and important things to hear I'm I'm totally not worried about getting enough people here on next Tuesday because if we're gonna be making concrete decisions about our first fiber build uh I'm gonna be we're gonna be chasing people away probably okay I mean not literally but fine so be sure you state that clearly in the warning so that the members who are more sporadically attending can can understand the significance maybe so I'm honestly I'm I'm not even worried about that I mean I'm I'm happy to say you know you're really ought to to come to this one but you know we we need 10 and if you know I'm not gonna be I'm not that professor that like hounds students and says you you guys have to show up if they don't show up they reap they reap the benefits but if somebody feels sad or cries because they didn't get to they didn't get to weigh in it's their responsibility to to be here for these meetings so I don't really honestly if that makes me a bad person I'm sorry but I give I give lots and lots of credit to the folks of doesn't make you a bad person so you're you're all you're all here you're contributing and I think this is and I think this is great so if folks choose not to show up that's I mean that's certainly they're they're prerogative I don't think we're gonna have a problem getting 10 and we may not get 20 but I think we can we can live with that okay um great that's a compliment Sam but he dropped off oh maybe felt in felt intimidated I'm glad he uh yeah I'm a fun fact Sam is now officially my next door neighbor oh wonderful so so he it was good good for him to join the meeting tonight then for that right all right um all right anything else on grant or funding stuff that we need to be talking about all right let's move on budget annual report so I've think successfully um thrown the annual report over the wall to to chuck in the communications committee I have the budget I'm happy to put it up on the screen or we can just walk through it each individually I have a bunch of feedback from from Ray that was fantastic and I intend to go through this one by one you know his suggestions one by one this is the first four quarters of what we are expecting to to build um so looking at you know the first steps what can we reasonably do in in a year and uh I expect that there's gonna that we're gonna need to change some things but I think if everything goes to on goes on schedule and we start the process for our real no joke fiber build in quarter one so January 1st I think um this should this should be fairly accurate um I can walk through this if you like otherwise I think I'd rather just go through Ray's questions because I believe that this will um my going through Ray's questions will probably answer a lot of your questions but before I start does anybody have any any thoughts or questions yeah um yeah Jeremy is this based on doing blue as the pilot project it doesn't really matter um it's going to be roughly the same but that was the that was the expectation so it's not yeah it's not substantially um it doesn't substantially change if we were to change projects and I see some people have hands up and whatever and I'm um it's quite um quite small I can't see everybody so if you just want to shout it out I see I think it's Ken go ahead yeah I just want through the possibility there that the Northern Borough Regional Commission is an annual um cycle and while we weren't successful this year I think that we're we'll be in a much much much better position next year so somewhere between 250 and 500 thousand dollars um end of q3 definitely end of q4 uh what when we could draw upon it if if we want it next year you mean correct okay what line item is that pardon I didn't hear that or what line item is that that would be grants grant so I'm not sure that I feel comfortable budgeting for a grant that we might not get I think it would be better if we were surprised by you know an additional revenue stream rather than budgeting for it personally maybe that's my kind of conservative ex select board member approach if you all want to do that differently I'm happy to happy to oblige it would be irresponsible to do otherwise okay thank you Michael uh you could comment you could comment that in those two cells yeah or in column g or something so may pursue additional um nbrc grants for q3 q4 how about that I guess I would seek some consistency because the loan proceeds um is a presumption that we we land the beat alone by q2 I think that's you know I'm not going to work on that as an absolute assumption yeah well so that that's true um may not um receive this beat alone assuming that we do I will I'll I'll rephrase this later but yeah I'm happy to do that but I mean if if that doesn't happen frankly this whole budget is is blown um and maybe maybe we won't get the beat alone but I think the presumption was that if we're going to if we're going to go after the 400 000 of matching then that's going to get us to um that's going to get us to the beat alone and then that gets us to the rest of the you know the rest of the project if we don't get the matching funds and or we don't get the beat alone this budget looks it's zeroed almost almost completely zeroed um so I think yes this this one is a bit aspirational but I think that's it's a little bit more um reachable I mean it's a little bit clearer than nbrc which which I honestly I thought for this year I thought nbrc we were gonna we were gonna get it and I think I think actually our last budget may have even included um no I didn't actually but but we were actually starting to draw draw on vita loans in our previous year budget so anyways so back to this so let me go through um okay Henry I see you have your hand again I can't see hands up really unless I go and click back on different windows but I see your hand Henry just a comment that I would I would just generalize that um comment on row four is because there could be other grants too there could be the r us money there could be the fcc money you know so they're just not considering those this budget doesn't include you know fcc and usda or something like that yeah so I'm I'm not not sure that we would be getting fcc money next year anyways but no so it's we'll we'll just put maybe two additional grants for quarter three quarter four it certainly is possible but I I don't think that in terms of of how we're going to budget and plan that we can rely on those but I think that makes sense just to to make that a general a general statement instead okay I agree raised question was the first one was um about the pre-construction engineering and that he said this was for fiber the premises this is all fiber the premises there is no wireless project here there is no um if we're getting revenues from this project at the end of the year that we just started talking about tonight we can we can change that in our final budget this is a draft budget that we are obligated to send to the municipalities and to get their feedback about so select boards and city councils will get this and they'll have a chance to say hey this is really crazy or this is really good or most likely absolutely nothing at all um and then and then we are obliged to you know we don't have to take any particular piece of feedback but we're at least obliged to have a hearing and have them weigh in if they have something to say about it and then we can or choose not to um change this according to their feedback so we will still have another crack at this if we understand more about revenue streams or costs or what have you that we make decisions about this year that we'll then go into into next year so raised question is I understood engineering could not take place before a poll audit that is true and the make ready surveys are um those those are the poll audit that's where that comes from um so this is not these are not in time sequence really these are and they're not in actually any particular order at all ISP it's not clear what line item that might be that is operational caught so this ISP backhaul did you mean that one ray well I couldn't see ISP as an entity like hiring valentine or whomever where where does that fit in um that's the ISP that's like first light or something like that that's not the operator right so um yeah I don't I don't have that operation in here that wasn't I don't know that that was I thought that was included it should have been labor here it is or is that that's just the installation labor yeah that suggests something different to me okay yeah this is this is the installation labor so maybe we'll do construction okay uh so let's add an item down here that looks more like the right place for it so what so um ISP operations operations how's that that looks good okay and somebody want to give me some prices spitball so probably nothing for the first quarter because there's not going to be anything built come on michael help us out here we need a definition of what the operations are before we can put a number um so we hire because it includes service drops is this is it just back office there's so many different things back office it does like the day to day operations we hire valentine to do this how much are we paying them to run the network for us or whichever ISP are we also paying to do the service drops service structures are built in that's already that's already every house yes it's already accounted for where fiber construction labor fiber construction cost i wrapped i wrapped all of that all of that into that fiber construction cost so that's drops that's all of the equipment on the poles that's all of the other elements that are all the other devices that need to be built for that i just compressed all of those into a single line item that's right and why a whole section perhaps having to do with ISP with these sub bullets below it so i i'm not going to do sub bullets these are these are further municipalities we are going to have so check this out we have all of these different breakouts that we are going to have is in our internal bookkeeping i'm not i'm so i while i appreciate everybody's earnestness into helping me fix this now this i've had literally no feedback about this for quite some time except for what i heard from ray uh earlier earlier this week so no i'm sorry um let's just say operational costs for the ISP um not broken out so is this um $15,000 a quarter is that order of magnitude correct more or less michael i'm sorry i really have no clue because it would depend on all the operations whether it's per subscriber that's so many factors to think about and i don't i don't want to take a chance on a number sorry okay well so unfortunately we are in this place where we are obligated to provide a budget and so if we don't put something it doesn't have to but we're not obligated to provide a super accurate budget it's so any number is okay as long as it's not outrageous it's not going to be a million and it's not going to be 10,000 is that per quarter that's per quarter it's going to be more it'll be more than that probably but at the beginning there won't be that many customers and that many miles so it's going to ramp up right so this is i i think if i figured this out this is uh this first year is it's not they may be like 70 miles 80 miles i i don't even know that it's that much and it's so again this is my complete and yeah i i would rather i would honestly i would rather i'd rather over guess here so it's in this case it'd be better to overestimate the amount that we're spending on this so that when we report back to to the towns or you know anybody that's looking at this and they say wow you guys were completely wrong on but you know by an order of magnitude so this is why i'm looking if it's going to be much much more if this is going to be 150,000 next year then let's let's just put it here i mean again we this is the same conversation we had last year where like to a certain extent because we don't know our actual costs we've not negotiated these things to a certain extent we're making this stuff up but we have to put we have to put something here we don't have a choice but to submit a budget and so let's do the best we can given that we don't have enough information and david's right he was put in the chat this is an estimated budget right what do you think about 25 35 50 okay legal expenses no i don't um i don't have legal expenses let's add it okay where's our expensive look at at least you could put professional expenses which would cover engineers accountants and lawyers engineers are a separate line item because they're part of the build so all right so about administrative so bookkeeping and auditing it's down here so you know i'm just gonna i'm just gonna put legal you have to be all right 25 25 000 total or per quarter yeah at least no total how about 20 make a nice even five sounds good great wonderful okay uh if loan proceeds equal 1.57 million don't we need 157 thousand matching funds no and the reason that we're doing this is if we get a $400,000 match from the funding that's being provided from the state we will want to front load that and spend that first so that we're not incurring the interest by drawing down the veto loan so that's the reason why that's first and it's it's a four million dollar 4.4 million dollar project or thereabouts maybe slightly less than that so even if you add this together and you get 1.575 million we are hopefully getting the full project match up front i mean it's it's there it's available it was allocated for us so let's let's go forward with that all right data revenue is subscriptions that is a that is a true statement monthly payments of $80 a month it could be something else it could be quite different again this is a a bit of a fudge factor and this ramps up as we look at getting more so and yes you have a you have a breakdown of this is um $11,000 per month the 137.5 customers sure i mean again this is a approximation of what we're going for and what i did is i took the financial model and i did a bit of rounding and i almost always rounded up and i tried to round up a fair bit because again i'd rather be more actually i'm sorry with the revenue i rounded down so i'm going to be more conservative with the revenue expecting that we're not going to get as much as predicted and this was all with all of the basic unedited assumptions so in terms of how many you know how many we're getting for a particular take rate that's not not been changed not been tweaked and maybe there's costs in there that need to be changed or accommodated um somehow i didn't do that i went with went with some defaults and i did not i did not do anything fancy looks like i got some so do we have any pro forma of of how the take rate of involves other quarters and years yeah it's in there not it's in there okay yeah it's a it's a slow it's a slow ramp up i i don't remember the um the formula but you were able to say about how long it takes you to get to the full take rate that you're expecting and then it caps are you talking about press press model is that what you're using that's what i'm using here yes oh okay great okay so that's where all of these numbers come from all right so um see a manager contract salary of a hundred k and so that maybe that's wrong but that was i think that was in what uh david you had that in your model for what we had before when we applied for nbrc so that's what we put there um and race as i assume this will be a full-time project manager it'll be crazy busy overseeing all the work i think that's i think that's correct uh the question is might we need a part-time uh ed just to support the board and i'm going to go with no i i don't really want to budget another position i think the crazy busy overseeing person um can be crazy busy and be supporting us as well i think that's all that's all part of the same package um please and please again shout out if if i'm being completely inappropriate here is that uh is that going to be considered a cb fiber employee or just contractor i think we still have to i personally think that that will keep contracting i don't think that it's going to make sense for us to take on employees right now especially with the ramifications that that has for the um bonding later on that makes the bonding much more forgiving okay thank you sure um do you mean the secretary to take minutes update the website and yes that should be so i think that gets covered somewhat under office costs we have a budget for that already and we are paying jeremy what is that per month 150 i think there's also 200 if and when we ever get a um treasurer okay and so that should be accounted for that should be covered in this as well although the bookkeeping the treasurer if we get if we hire an actual bookkeeper that's what we're looking for here and this audit this is front loaded i think again i think i'm taking david's number here uh if i'm not mistaken this is the audit front loaded and then the bookkeeping the ongoing costs of that to office cost that will be our secretary uh clerk what have you uh i see interest at five percent was that lowered by vita from the six percent we were told nope that was just because that's what i typed into the formula so let's just change the six percent five percent to six percent and uh we'll make that make that correct so um um so that changes our our net though so we're going to have to up this make sure we have cash flow still not quite enough so accounting for that higher interest rate uh that costs so anything else like i got through all the raise feedback is there anything else that we need to um update in here um this my insurance here is a complete guess any advice about that would certainly be welcome marketing is going enough probably not yeah so what what should it be chuck you had a i think you maybe had a budget for what you were imagining yeah i i i think marketing needs to be at least five to ten k uh not more okay well if you want more this is the time to to mention it well we want to talk i would go i would go about two two to three k per quarter well actually no i was thinking now per month no so that's probably about right michael that was exactly the what tripped me up is i was thinking per month yeah i think i think i think the quarter is probably to start off probably a little high but that's okay okay any other thoughts so this was a separate line item do we need to keep this is a separate line item i assume that meant just like customer acquisition costs like marketing essentially you could just whack it that's that what you meant by that yeah it's not yeah that was all right let's i'd go whack it here bye bye uh does that insurance amount electricity any of these look like we need to change these what will we be insuring the the fiber fiber plant the work oh i see i see okay liability and jeremy just make sure before you send this out to any towns you get rid of that complete guess on line 24 right okay yeah track notice and they would focus on nothing else jeremy can we we update insurance actually a little bit now that i'm thinking about i was i was looking at that for for um for months it's for example but let's let's do a 4500 a quarter okay okay i'd rather be i then you ask you for and you know storm damage and so forth does that come in under insurance or do we have to have a line item for no potential repair costs or things like that so we have some we have a budget for spare parts should things need to be repaired and there's a a bit of a bit of slack it's a different line you want to you want to have one called operation maintenance and that covers storm damage oh odn maintenance that one i don't know what odn's thing oh operations optical distribution network it's the fiber okay uh so okay so that's um contract with us this is if we were to make one would be 300 dollars a mile a month in terms of me no no a year excuse me a year so if you're talking about 150 miles that's a significant budget item so say that again so how much per mile per year 300 dollars and that is just the retainer is somewhere around 100 to 150 a month but then there's the what they charge when you come out and when they do the repairs and that's with stand budgets 300 okay so we need this to be an order of magnitude larger it's more like 30 000 then for Eustace for 100 so just just you know because of your talk and i thought you said an 80 mile bill the first year yep um and that and it ramps to 80 so probably it's an average over the year of maybe 30 miles so i don't think this year it's going to be a huge amount so i'm saying 30 times 300 that's 9 000 9 000 okay how's that good roughly hope for most years so that you get money for next year say that again you hope for no storms so you have money for next year yeah that's uh it's a good thought all right anything else are we still cash flow positive down the bottom well ish yeah again this is just like how much do we draw no i i i i i i totally get it um just want to make sure that we have enough drawn okay uh alan i did i see your hand up yeah do you ever carry forward somewhere in this budget i don't left over from the year before i don't there's not there's not going to be much okay well then it's not worth worrying about it's going to be less less than 10 000 i think it's not significant then we're in a budget like this so yeah eventually eventually we will get to that point um where we where we will be able to say all right we have this we have this left over and we can use that but it's still there's so much up in the air um we can expect to not have any of the 100 000 that we got from the um cares act funding because whatever we don't spend gets yanked back um and we really don't have anything else um we don't really have anything else sort of in our pocket aside from the stuff that we're you know that we're um i don't i don't i mean i think we had the 10 000 from the bcf and there could be some of that hanging out still and maybe a little bit more of that coming later but uh ray i think i see you yeah so i'm thinking that electricity is really too trivial a cost to have its own mine item can we either get rid of it or bury it inside office costs sure and so what bump this up maybe a little bit pardon what is a wholesale phone cogs that's another very small a relatively small item this that's a good soul yeah you want to explain that michael um so that's the cost of analyte telephone adapters and other things like that that you sell to customers so that they can have voice over internet and that's not included in the construction costs well i yeah there's lots of ways to look at the stuff that's so the service drops might not belong in construction costs either and then there's the the optical equipment i don't know where that is that in equipment spare parts it is okay um so if you wanted to bury bury the void equipment yeah this this could probably be in the equipment spare parts i think equipment the equipment spare parts is including um a hub equipment that's not sold and cost of good cost of good sold is retail retail stuff things sold and so it's a different category right so so an accountant is going to care about the difference between so i mean we can we can bury it in here in terms of how we present it an accountant is going to deal with this differently than we will i mean like i said that's for sure things get quite a lot more complicated because this cost of good sold is not a capital asset right so we have it listed as an as an expense um but again it's all right i'd say leave it i mean we can't get rid of every single line yeah so but it's it's also going to it's also going to appear in some form as um you know they're still going to buy it from us but it's you know how much it costs us then to to buy the thing in the first place so i'm i'm happy to i'm happy to do whatever like i said i've i've looked at this and i threw this together um based on some of the numbers that david had had and that um fred had put together for us but what do you think are we ready to uh with for the cogs you could just boost it up a little and throw in wireless routers and other other retail equipment retail equipment cogs and when we say starting here what maybe like five five k is that too much it's probably too much the first quarter that you're serving people but how was that perfect yeah lovely um i see henry you had your hand up and then ray i don't i we can't really spend too much more time on this frankly and again this is this is the thing and i i i don't mean to be that guy but um this this went out um we you know we got some no feedback and i i don't want to to i i don't want to micromanage this too much anymore but um henry what did you got i'm just curious with the void um did you have any kind of redundancy or backup power in the equipment cost sure yes yes there's there's spare parts but i mean in terms of and like engineered redundancy i i i don't i i have to imagine well i mean if there's a power no is your current current to void having power backup so it keeps working when the power is off i i would i would have that's retail i would have to look at i would go in line 20 i would have to look at at the the cost model the cash flow model to see if that was included in the cost my instinct is that it was not there's there's now regulations that require it so it's something we're gonna have to build it okay the equipment spare parts then so let's add 5k per no no no it goes in it goes in the line 21 with the cogs and it would be like hold on though hold on you got ready for it okay but there's the power backups that are on the individual retail side items but there's the power backups that are on the the what's on the poles our equipment not the retail equipment so do we put it in both we put it in both then okay yes so okay so now we have powers great uh let's see uh ray and shimon last year when we submitted this budget to the towns did we include an attachment which had a definition for each line item here here here it was this was the budget that we sent last year so no we didn't okay because it was they were all early we didn't get any questions from no we did not I did um you know in person questions when reporting to my town you did oh good did they ask about redundancy for a void oh gee legal explain more about legal and what do you mean by software and things like that I see okay because I'm pretty sure nobody on my select board has ever even talked about redundancy in their lives and I'm I I'm going to be that gal and say this is for the towns we just need to be within an order of magnitude on these things and I I'm I'm sorry I've been in meetings all day I mean we're all exhausted but I'm pretty sure I if we put it on here I will be asked so what is a cog and what is ODS and yeah yeah because so there's ODN maintenance and retail equipment cogs so yeah your people are going to ask about it Montpeliers people are going to ask about it um barry town or barry city might so just pick out the acronyms and then it'll be okay okay anything else and do we have any interest eba that's missing the I no it's not ebi tda no okay I was following the um I was following what um what they had what he had in there and he did not include interest so I added interest back in so there you go it's a different interest isn't it is it yeah I think even uh it's interest there you got it thanks allen yielding um yielding the the bandwidth back uh so I'm I'm going to declare this done if you have if you have any more thoughts prayers wishes um encouragement please send it to me I'm going to I'm just going to move forward and send this to the towns so if you want to make a motion that is your prerogative one question what about the red and the green are you leaving that yes I'm leaving that because it's revenues and expenditures should I not should I not I don't know don't David wants to comment on this okay I'm going to send this to the towns anybody object good great no David's muted okay that's good now I think David's probably muted so we don't hear his his cursing and his get let's get on with it okay decisions about initial fiber build I think luckily Chuck has helped us make this decision already so let's let's skip that one let's go straight to um let's go straight to round table um I will start this time um I had a conversation there's there's still some talk about capacity with uh fiber builds and line workers and people able to do fiber and splicing and so the conversation is now um I think just just about everybody who's who's important in the decision is is aware of um of the situation so department of labor we'll hear about it soon ccv vtc the department of public service they know that we need more people trained up to do the uh fiber construction and to do the fiber uh line worker stuff so that is in the pipeline I just wanted to let you know that I was a little bit privy to some of those conversations um Alan is left uh Andy I'm good okay Doki um Chuck thank you everyone uh David okay I hear this I read your lips and you said thank you and that was it okay uh Henry it's an exciting time I'm willing to help with the grant writing proposals that we need to do in the short term I think that we maybe we need some working groups for tackling some of these different areas that we identified in the business development meeting it's exciting now it's and then things are really coming along all right thanks Henry Jeremy just want to say thanks to everyone who's putting in so much work it's pretty incredible pretty amazing thanks everyone uh John I just want to apologize for missing quite a few meetings recently uh we've been very busy here in Marshfield doing other things and so I keep forgetting about meetings I'll do better thanks John uh Josh uh just thanks everyone uh Ken yeah I want to apologize I want to practice on you folks a little bit I have to talk to um this consultant that's being done $450,000 to help with emergency planning and um part of the emergency you know this COVID thing is really put a lot of focus on telecommunications and the CUDs I think have been a beneficiary of it but understanding with the emergency not just because of COVID is going to last longer than 2020 and 2021 because what we're seeing is telehealth remote work remote learning those activities are going to go beyond the emergency so that's why we're able to justify kind of the emergency planning but as I say CUDs have been a beneficiary and I think we're starting to understand the long-term role of CUDs in terms of being a provider that goes beyond what the market has been able to provide the last few years so so anyway I'm practicing on you folks because I have to do the spiel with the consultant and then there's another piece that I raised before that I'm going to raise raise repeatedly now is the American community survey tracks how people get their internet service and one of the things that's happened over the last five years is more and more people get more and more of their internet service from mobile mobile wireless and as we get greater penetration of 4g and we in our rural areas but get 5g introduced in our urban areas that is going to be even greater and so understanding what our role as a CUD is in terms of mobile wireless is I think a task that I'm going to ask this consultant to really give some thought to and help us CUDs consider so they say I'm sorry I rambled a little bit but I need to practice because I have to try to make the pitch to the these folks and just so you know the consultant one of the two members in the consultant is Matt Dunn's organization whatever it's called rural initiatives or something so that's those are the folks I'm talking to this week thank you thanks for the update Ken Michael I was just going to say see you next week but now I have to answer Ken I think the role for CUDs in relation to wireless is to make sure there's enough fax on the poles or slack on the poles to provide connections to those wireless radios that are going to be interspersed down the roads on the poles okay and then the the implicit see you next week then is that the end there Ray thanks Siobhan so I just want to say Ken the other thing to keep in mind I have several friends who do their entire job is online and has been since the very beginning they do tech support and their employers require them to have a wired connection to the house they can't use a wireless connection they're not allowed to for whatever reason I don't know what the reasons are but I have three friends who have jobs like this so that's another reason why wire to the house is important just because that's going to help bring jobs into the area bring people in the area and hopefully help revitalize some of these communities that are suffering because people are leaving I'm done thanks Siobhan Tim I'm good thank you thanks Tom yes um I'm surprised I mean after all of these meetings that we are keep talking about the chance to have this knockdown drag out fight over where we're going to start building and have it come down to a unanimous decision and like just kind of a side part of our meeting you know what do we come to these meetings for where we just sneak it in there fight let's fight I'm good thanks everybody all right sounds good um let's let's adjourn and we'll see you all next week have a good one oh and congrats Michael on your reward okay yes